Ever since she caught her first wave seven years ago, the sport of surfing has become more of a feeling than a sport for the school teacher turned adventuress.

It became a quest — combining mental exploration with the demanding physicality of actually riding a wave. It happens to climbers. It happens to skiers and snowboarders. It’s the call to play with nature — to merge with something larger than life. Once you do it, you automatically want to do it again — ergo the addiction.

Waeshle — an established freelance outdoors/travel writer, photographer, and former Patagonia writer who recently relocated to Poulsbo — documents it all in her new book “Chasing Waves: A Surfer’s Tale of Obsessive Wandering.”

With a degree in geology and a master’s in education from Seattle University, Waeshle gave up a life in the classroom after three years teaching middle school science for the opportunity to be a full-time freelance writer. Between assignments over the next five years, Waeshle chased waves from Fiji to Morocco to Baja, Mexico, and beyond, documenting her travels in both photos and prose, creating a series of stories from her adventures while chronicling her own evolution from nervous newbie to self-confident, skillful surfer.

“Anyone who has ever longed for a daring diversion from day job and doldrums will connect with these tales of wanderlust, vagabonding, and riding the surf,” The Mountaineers’ press says.

“The people, the places, the loves, the losses, and the aching curiosity about one’s own destiny and motivations — it’s all rendered here in strong, fresh prose,” added Daniel Duane, author of “Caught Inside: A Surfer’s Year on the California Coast,” noting Waeschle’s book deserves a place in every surf-literature home library.

Poulsbo author Amy Waeschle will be reading from her new book “Chasing Waves: A Surfer’s Tale of Obsessive Wandering” at 6 p.m. June 6 at Liberty Bay Books, 18881-D Front St. in downtown Poulsbo and later this month, at 7:30 p.m. June 25 at Eagle Harbor Books, 157 Winslow Way on Bainbridge. Info: www.amywaeschle.com, www.libertybaybooks.com,www.eagleharborbooks.com.

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